Me Time
Family Matters
It's been a difficult month to say the least.
I flew to Denver on June 30th, excited to meet my son there who flew in from Portland, OR, and attend an actual in-person GCLS board meeting before the conference. I had all of my workshops and volunteer shifts picked out. I was pumped!
Then on Sunday morning at breakfast, my wife called to tell me her father had had a massive stroke and wasn't expected to make it. So, of course, I flew back home and headed to the hospital.
It was an exhausting and upsetting week, that included a funeral and a night of shiva (a Jewish mourning ritual usually at a home where friends and family bring food and comfort the mourners).
So I missed the Conference but I did watch the awards ceremony on the livestream, which made me happy and seemed not to increase my FOMO (fear of missing out).
I know I needed to be where I was, with family.
There's always 2024!
Meanwhile, the post-Con surveys are coming in and the overall sentiment is positive, which makes those of us on the board both happy and relieved.
Sapphic Lit and Other Book Stuff
Three Things Your Author Newsletter Must Do to Please Subscribers - WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®
3 Ways to Please Your Subscribers and Keep Them Coming Back
How My Newsletter Helped Me Land an Agent and a Big Five Book Deal | Jane Friedman
I’d landed in that agent’s inbox via AWP’s Writer to Agent program, through which writers who are registered to attend that year’s conference can send a query letter and five pages for the consideration of participating agents at five agencies. I ultimately had meetings with three agents through that program and received offers from each. I chose my agent, Maggie Cooper at Aevitas, the one who’d mentioned my newsletter in her initial email
9 Ways to Show the Reader it’s Love – Writer Unboxed
Since a well-developed romantic thread can keep readers of any genre turning pages, let’s look at some of the ways authors have successfully convinced readers that their characters are falling in love.
When is the Best Time to Release a New Book? - WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®
Are certain days, months, or dates better than others?
Well, it depends on the book.
How To Boost Sales Of Your Backlist Titles | by Writer’s Relief | Jul, 2023 | Medium
a book you self-published months or even years ago still has unlimited sales potential! By focusing some of your marketing efforts on your backlist, you can drive traffic to these evergreen sources of income.
Six Ways to Name Your Characters - by Rebecca Makkai
Here are six ways to name your characters, only one of which might result in a lawsuit, plus several ways not to, and a common question answered.
Is My Writing a Hobby Or a Career?
Once, someone asked whether I’d ever considered “really writing,” the suggestion being that pieces I reported and books I’ve written were somehow less real because they were not my primary source of income, of health insurance, of work. Nearly right after, someone else asked why I wouldn’t just quit writing if I felt I was working too much. I had no good answers.
To Agent, or Not to Agent. That Is the Question – Writer Unboxed
For some writers, skipping the agent route and going with a small publisher feels less than—accepting defeat and settling for a lower spot in the publishing food chain. I understand. I just don’t feel that way. But that’s for every writer to decide for themselves.
NYT op-ed asks “What’s the Point of Prizes?” I'll tell you!
A prize often represents an unexpected windfall—one that changes, if even briefly, the daunting math of a writing career
Minnie Bruce Pratt, Lesbian Poet, Essayist, and Activist, Dead at 76
Minnie Bruce Pratt, the esteemed poet, lesbian and feminist activist, and longtime partner of trans activist Leslie Feinberg, has died.
In Memoriam: Dr. Cheri A. Pies, Author of Classic Book on Lesbian Parenthood - Mombian
Dr. Cheri A. Pies, whose 1985 book, Considering Parenthood: A Workbook for Lesbians, helped innumerable queer women become parents during the “gayby boom” of the 1980s, died from cancer on July 4 at the age of 73. If you don’t know her name yet, you should; in many ways, all of us queer parents who came after have benefited from her work, whether we know it or not.
Conservatives look to BookLooks for help banning books - Philadelphia Gay News
Even a cursory examination of of the authors listed by BookLooks as objectionable and worthy of banning includes some of the brightest luminaries of modern letters: Toni Morrison, Tennessee Williams, Margaret Atwood, Vladimir Nabokov, Zora Neale Hurston, Kurt Vonnegut, Langston Hughes and Harper Lee, among many others.
Drag Story Hour is Controversial, But Important — Here's Why
it’s important for children to learn to be accepting of one another and even learn how to celebrate differences. For children who attend Drag Story Hours and don’t identify as LGBTQ+, these events teach children how to be good allies. It shows them that it’s possible to understand and empathize with people, even if they don’t look and act exactly like you.
Goodreads, Amazon's website for book lovers, causes problems in publishing - The Washington Post
Goodreads “hasn’t been all that well maintained, or updated, or kept up with what you would expect from social communities or apps in 2023,” said Jane Friedman, a publishing industry consultant. “It does feel like Amazon bought it and then abandoned it.”
How Goodreads Reviews Can Tank a Book Before It’s Published - The New York Times
The website Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building readership, but the same features that help generate excitement can also backfire
News You Can Use
A Celebrity Lesbian Romance Changed My Life. (Even if It Never Happened.) - The New York Times
In another world — the alternate universe we find online — wouldn’t it be nice if we were the ones reading the room right for once, and all the straight people were misreading the lyrics and missing the obvious? These theories are wish fulfillment and a choral narrative to scream-sing — a daydream in which Miss Americana, maybe, tells us she knows what we mean and she’s happy we have one another.
(1) What's In A (Lesbian) Word? - by Kira Deshler
In my writing, I use a variety of different words like lesbian, queer, and sapphic to describe individuals, groups of people, or forms of media. The reason I don’t always use the word lesbian is to include women or non-binary folks who are attracted to women but may not identify as such – bisexuals, pansexuals, etc. But, at the same time, I try to use lesbian as much as possible in order to counteract the notion that it is some sort of ‘dirty word.’ I used to use “queer women” or similar words in my academic work because it’s a common term in academia, but I have mostly ceased using this phrase because it doesn’t include non-binary lesbians, a gender-bending idea I’ve written about before.
What Does "Queer" Mean? 9 LGBTQ+ People Explain How They Love, Hate, and Understand the Word | Them
Depending on whom you ask, there are a million conflicting meanings for the word. Many still see it as a degrading slur. Many others embrace it with pride.
(1) What Is Lesbian Fashion? - by Kira Deshler
an interview with Eleanor Medhurst, a lesbian fashion historian who runs the blog and Instagram account Dressing Dykes. Eleanor’s posts about fashion history span continents and time periods
Singing the Lesbian Blues in 1920s Harlem
The good news for women-loving chanteuses like Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Gladys Bentley is that blues music in the 1920s was so far under the radar of mainstream America, female blues singers could get away with occasionally expressing their unconventional desires.
In Memoriam: Dr. Susan Love, Pioneering Breast Cancer Researcher, Advocate, and Lesbian Mom - Mombian
In 1993, Love and her partner (later wife) were also the first same-sex parents in Massachusetts to both be named legal parents of their child, a case later cited in support of the state’s landmark marriage equality ruling.
Lilli Vincenz, early activist in gay rights movement, dies at 85 - The Washington Post
“She was certainly a pioneer in that way,” Lillian Faderman, the author of the book “The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle,” said in an interview. “They couldn’t get another lesbian to show her face.”
Opinion | Coming Out Late — and Finding a New Life in Midlife - The New York Times
In particular, most of the women I spoke to professed no previous same-sex attraction, instead explaining that they fell in love with a woman, not that they were seeking relationships with women in general.
The Messiness of Coming Out Later in Life — Gloria
one of the defining features of female sexual orientation is its fluidity. This fluidity means that, regardless of their sexual orientation, women may experience desire for people of all genders as they encounter different situations and environments. For some (perhaps most) women, love and intimacy aren’t rigid. For some, it’s not about missing the signs — it’s about embracing change.
23 Funny Sapphic Tweets
"Queer women will guess your zodiac sign in 0.2 seconds but can’t guess if you’re flirting with them."
Helpful Tools
A Terrific Quote
Daily Inspiration | Inspiring Quotes
Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness — it has no taste.